Tony Blair will be as celebrated as Winston Churchill, claims Cherie

Cherie Blair has predicted that history will judge her husband as significant a world figure as Sir Winston Churchill.

Mrs Blair, who also admitted she was not a success in her role as "First Lady", was ridiculed by Tory MPs for comparing her husband to Britain's greatest wartime leader.

In an interview with Vanity Fair she said that Tony Blair would be judged "very well" by history and that "he'll be up there with Churchill".

One Tory MP said: "In 50 years time we will still be talking about Churchill and Thatcher but it will be Tony who?"

Mrs Blair was less effusive on her own role as consort to the Prime Minister. "Just look at the press cuttings, you couldn't say that it was a triumph, could you!" she said.

Mrs Blair also admitted that her husband had not reacted well to her decision to disclose in her memoirs, Speaking For Myself, that their son Leo was conceived on their annual weekend at Balmoral with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.

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"I think he's rather embarrassed by the love affair bits," she says. "I don't think he particularly read those closely. Been there, done that! He did read the political things."

But she defended her decision to include in the book the fact that she had forgotten to pack her "contraceptive equipment" for the Balmoral weekend. She said it struck a blow against outdated taboos about women speaking about their birth control experiences.

"Part of that is the fact that women can control their own fertility. I'm not ashamed of the fact that that has helped me. My mother fell pregnant with me and it changed the course of her life. That was something I had a choice about. All my children were my choice.

"I'm sure that in political books people don't talk about their contraception, but this is not a political book," she said. "This was a book about a woman's life, about my journey and how it reflects the journey of so many other women."

Mrs Blair revealed that when she was in Downing Street she followed the advice she had been given by Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady.

"Hillary said to me: 'You have to realise you're not going to please all the people all the time, and there are going to be some people you're never going to be able to please. So you must be true to yourself and to the people you know and respect'.

"It's a difficult role, to be First Lady. That's why I admire Hillary so much. She played that role, and she also showed us she could play the role of president too."

Mrs Blair said that she felt a "deep sense of relief" that she was no longer the Prime Minister's wife when Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France came to Britain on a state visit. Mrs Blair said she would have hated the inevitable comparisons when she was photographed next to her. Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy is a former model.

"That isn't really a fair comparison, is it. Clothes were not an important part of my career, that's for sure.... Since I'm not a fashion model, there's a limit to how nice I can make myself. I don't regard myself as an ugly person, but I don't think of myself as someone who would choose to be a model. I'm somebody who might be, I'd like to think, a role model for people who want to become lawyers."